


Proper Names

by Bloodsbane



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Banter, Family Bonding, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Humor, headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 19:53:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18763093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloodsbane/pseuds/Bloodsbane
Summary: Joxter speculates on how Snufkin got his name.





	Proper Names

**Author's Note:**

> These two are simply too much fun to write!
> 
> **Notes:**
> 
> 1) This fic isn't technically a sequel to [Comparing Paws](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18592633), though I personally consider it as happening pretty soon after that one. You really don't have to read it to understand what's happening here, but it's where I have the boys first meeting each other, so consider checking it out!
> 
> 2) This one is mainly an excuse to hypothesize on Snufkin's background, how he grew up, and...
> 
> 3) ...the naming conventions used in the Moomin universe! These are just how I personally enjoy toying around with the topic, so don't take me too seriously or anything, haha. I've just always found settings like these, where characters' names are also what they are (i.e. Little Bear), pretty amusing. So this is my take on some form of explanation for that!

“So, boy, tell me: who gave you that name?”

Snufkin chewed on the end of his pipe. He kept his eyes closed, determined not to let Joxter - his father - see that the question was a strange one.

“No one,” he answered after a time. “I named myself.”

“Hm. You said you aren't from this region, isn't that right?”

Now Snufkin did peek. He and Joxter were sharing a fire in the woods. Snufkin had wanted to have a bit of a lark on his own, packing a small bag and wandering about the valley with no true destination in mind. It just so happened that he had come across a fragrant grove with lovely bundles of fruits growing in the high branches. There he had found Joxter, sound asleep amidst the autumn leaves.

Snufkin had considered making a sly departure. In truth, he still wasn't sure how to feel about his dad. The older mumrik was a strange fellow indeed, and their first proper chat had left Snufkin feeling out of sorts and a bit wary. It was hard to find the man scary right then, though, curled up and half hidden by branches and leaves. His orange-red nose could have been mistaken for part of the canopy.

That had made Snufkin chuckle, which caused Joxter to open one eye immediately.

And so here they were, sharing a pipe and dinner and each other's company. Though Joxter had once expressed disdain for Snufkin's affinity for water, he didn't turn up his nose at the fresh fish his son had caught.

Snufkin blew out a plume of smoke and handed the pipe over. “No, I'm not from Moominvalley or nearby. I'm not so sure exactly where I came from. All I remember is that I was found in a box somewhere.”

“Ah. Abandoned?” Joxter said this thoughtfully, as if questioning himself. “Or perhaps misplaced. Or, more likely, you waddled off.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you must have been with the Matron Mymble for at least the first year,” Joxter said. “At two, it isn't uncommon for the children to wander off during a trip and find their own way. It's in our nature, you know, to find trouble. And of course mother dearest has so many little ducklings at her heels, I'm not surprised she loses one or two on her travels.”

“Doesn't the Mymble live on a turtle's back?”

“That she does. She's been all over since moving onto that beast. Perhaps that's how she lost you.”

Snufkin wasn't sure what the turtle had to do with it, unless Joxter was implying he'd been lost at sea. Backtracking a bit, Snufkin asked, “Is it not possible my mother named me Snufkin, and I remembered after I had gone?”

“No, not at all possible.” As he declared this, Joxter smiled. He had a very wide, toothy grin, his bright white teeth shining in the dark, like light sneaking into a room beneath the door. He always seemed up to something when he smiled. “She wouldn't call you that. Mymble gave her children proper names, to keep better track. Well, most of them. The poor thing is still from this valley, after all.”

“I don't understand,” Snufkin said. When Joxter offered the pipe, he hesitated a moment before taking it once more. His father plucked a fruit from his lap and chewed on it. “What do you mean when you say ‘proper name’?”

“Let me ask you something instead; when Moominpappa first mentioned me, what did he call me?”

“He called you ‘The Joxter’, and his dear old friend.”

Another flash of a smile, stained faint blue from his fruit. “Yes. But I'm not ‘the’ anything, am I? I am not ‘a joxter’. My name is Joxter; I am a mumrik.

“A moomin is a kind of troll, yes, but there is not a type of mumrik called a ‘joxter’. That is simply my name, and nothing else.”

Snufkin blinked in surprise, though he wasn't sure exactly why Joxter's explanation had caught him off guard. “So... why then are you called  _The_  Joxter?”

“Because the folks in this region are silly,” Joxter claimed, his tone casual and assured. “They insist on calling everyone what they are, and only changing things slightly so it doesn't get confusing.”

It was strange to hear spoken, but Snufkin realized his father was right. In many of the places Snufkin traveled, people had all sorts of names, but in the areas closest to Moominvalley, the naming conventions practiced here were still seen.

“When I first came to Moominvalley,” Joxter continued, “it was as if they didn't know what to do with me. Moomin - ah, I mean Moominpappa - introduced me only by my name. For some reason, the addition of ‘The’ ahead of my name seemed to naturally follow. Suppose the fellows here had never seen a mumrik quite like myself and weren't sure what to call me. They thought I was ‘a joxter’, and the only one in the valley, so I became  _The_  Joxter.”

“How funny!” Snufkin said, and laughed. His father smiled before finishing the rest of his fruit. Once Snufkin's amusement had passed, he wondered, “But then, what does this have to do with me? You said I didn't have a proper name, but I'm only called Snufkin, not ‘The Snufkin’.”

“Well, after me came Too-Ticky, who has a proper name. I suppose around then, the folks of the valley had gotten used to the concept.” Joxter smirked, a fang catching the firefight. “There was not already a Snufkin, so no need to call you any extra nonsense like The Snufkin.”

Joxter paused, then chuckled. His laughter was always soft, deep, like the far-away rustling of night animals. “Mr. Snufkin, maybe, if you were a bit older.”

“Oh, stop it.”

“Snufkinlad?”

“Terrible!”

Another chuckle. Joxter was quite amused with himself it seemed, and it rankled Snufkin - if only for one reason.

“You've still failed to prove your point,” he claimed, waving the end of his pipe at his father. “You still haven't proven my name is not proper.”

“Oh, but I have!”

Snufkin scoffed as Joxter fell onto his side in the grass. His dark black tail curled up to cover his front paws. It was the way he seemed to prefer to sleep, when he wasn't up in a tree.

“Come now, darling son, and I'll tell you my idea of it, for I'm sure this is the most accurate guess after the truth:

“Upon the back of her always-roaming turtle, Mymble brought you and all the other ducklings to a far away place. Perhaps it was a dock town, or even a city. Some place not like Moominvalley at all, in the very least. There would be lots of people and some of them mumriks, some of them mymbles, but many of them different from you. No doubt your overburdened and inattentive mother lost a duck or two in the crowds.

“So here we have a young mumrik on his own, too small to even remember his name. But one need not remember his name to know his own instincts. You took care of yourself well enough, I imagine. But those people, and all the rough noise, and those awful smells... The residencies, all divided up into-  _sections-”_

Joxter paused to hiss at his imagination. Snufkin, too, was unsettled by the very idea of being lost in such a place.

“You wouldn't have cared for it,” Joxter continued. “You would have looked for a more natural place.”

“So I would have left?”

“Well, not likely. You may have been able to do some things on your own, but fending off wild animals or creatures wouldn't be one. You would have had to stay close to the people. Not too close, though.”

“Then where?”

Joxter grinned. “Well, these towns and cities, always grey stone and such, they never have any good woods or bushes or lakes all about. But what do they have? Come on now, son, you can guess.”

Snufkin chewed his pipe. Then he said, “Ah-ha! A park!”

“Clever boy, he is,” Joxter teased. Snufkin blew smoke at him from across the fire, though of course it didn't reach. “Ah! No temper now, darling, else I won't finish my story.”

“Go on with your loony story then,  _Pappa.”_

“Such a rude one. Didn't your parents teach you manners?”

“Funny of you to ask, considering what I just saw you do to that fish we ate.”

Joxter cut into the dirt with his claws as he snickered. Then he continued.

“So here is the lone child, born it seems from a box, left to live in parks where there are trees and bushes to hide in and small things to eat. But still he's hungry, because there isn't enough for him and the birds and squirrels and other creatures. So he goes about the place to look in bins for old food, or ask for something from someone with kind eyes, when he meets them.

“Sometimes there are those with unkind eyes and cruel hearts, and rude mouths, and they chase the little thing off with their words. And do you know what they say? ‘Get out my bin you damn snufkin! Keep away from the rubbish you filthy little snufkin! Oi, there goes that snufkin again - someone chase it off before the thing gets its grubby paws on something’.”

Snufkin stared at his father. Joxter shifted, sitting up slightly to lean on his elbows. He gave Snufkin an odd look, one the younger mumrik couldn’t understand.

Brown paws upturned the pipe and let ash fall into the fire.

“Don’t say words like that,” Snufkin muttered, and said nothing else.

Joxter stared a while longer. He had very strange eyes, quite unlike Snufkin’s. The younger’s eyes never turned into slits, though they both had eyes made for nighttime, which reflected the light in darkness. Joxter’s eyes were severe, almost haunting - Snufkin had a hard time looking directly into his face. What was on this man’s mind? He’d been making silly voices when saying all those things, but now he seemed as upset at the idea as his son.

Eventually, Joxter went on. “You see, boy, there’s more than one way to call a mumrik a mumrik.”

Snufkin looked up at the stars. “Oh.”

“Yes. And do you know what this means?”

Their eyes met again. “What?”

For a moment, in the dark shade of evening, everything but their fire was silent.

Then Joxter flashed a grin and his sharp little teeth parted to release something like a hiss. Snufkin slowly realized it was a laugh. “It means you had every opportunity to have a proper name, a  _real_  name, and you still got stuck with Snufkin!”

Snufkin stared at his father, who was now laughing in earnest. He was batting at the ground with his paws, positively delighted by the joke of it. “All the way east, or north, or what have you!” he sputtered through his amusement. “Every chance in the world! Could’ve called yourself- well, anything! Fig or Rowen, or some type of bird. But- but- no! Just got it in your head - oh, poor thing! - that your name must be what bastards were shouting at you.”

The youngest mumrik got to his feet. His boots had been removed earlier, so he felt no guilt in moving around the fire to kick at his father’s side. This only made the man laugh harder, and Snufkin glared down at his flushed face and glittering eyes and flashing teeth as he continued to gasp, “Might as well call you Mumrik, it’s no different!”

“Hush up! I told you to stop saying nasty words like that!”

“Oh no, don’t beat on poor old Pappa.”

“Some Pappa you are.”

“Please, Mumriklad, show your elder some respe- ouch! You naughty thing!”

Still laughing, Joxter rolled away. Snufkin went after him, but the man was much faster than he. Already he’d dashed away and scattered up the tallest tree.

Snufkin huffed and kicked at the tree but made no attempt to climb it. Nothing came down but leaves and his father’s chuckles.

For a while he stood there, glaring up into the rustling branches. Eventually, there came no more sound. Perhaps Joxter had gone to bed, or perhaps he’d slipped away - Snufkin didn’t know, and decided he no longer cared. After putting out his fire, he lay down in the grass. Alone in the dark,  he slept.

In the morning, he was still alone. Beside his knapsack was a pile of rich blue fruit, plucked from the highest parts of the trees.

**Author's Note:**

> oh yeah i looove that one character from moomin, uhhhh *checks smudged writing on my palm* mumriklad... yeah, he's my favorite


End file.
